Editor’s Note: Since November 2018, Joe has been publishing picks here and back at All Things NIT, our former site. Overall, the results have been mixed, with an average return on investment, per pick, of –0.8% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 5,058 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of +3.1% across 1,617 completed high and medium-confidence picks (low confidence picks, these days, are in experimental markets for us).
Use these picks at your own risk. Only you are responsible for any money you lose, and you should not bet more than you can afford to lose. If you’re afraid you might have a gambling problem, seek help.
Odds for these come the better option between Bovada and BetOnline. We used to use the Vegas Consensus, but it’s no longer consistently available in an accurate form online. FanGraphs is heavily used in making MLB picks.
Today’s futures, today’s moneyline.
Single-game MLB bets: On the season, we’re 59–46–4, we’re up 8.29 units, we’re up 8% (the average line on our winners has been –109). April was great, May was bad, June was good. July’s been promising, but there’s a lot of month left.
MLB futures: We began the season with 750 units in our MLB futures portfolio, with the intent being to spend 500 of those over the regular season and keep 250 in reserve for the postseason and/or hedging & arbitrage opportunities. This is circular, because we use FanGraphs probabilities to guide our picks, but if we use FanGraphs probabilities and include today’s plays, our mean expected return on the 750 units based on what we’ve bet so far is 137.31 units, or 13.2%.
Atlanta @ Milwaukee
It’s odd to see a line like this where the hotter team is undervalued and the colder team is overvalued, but we aren’t going to complain. Given how hard it is to trust Mike Soroka right now, the Brewers should probably be the favorites, even with Freddy Peralta having a down year. Down years just aren’t as down when they’re down relative to a 3.60 career FIP.
It’s odd as well to see a situation where Atlanta could possibly be an underdog, but that’s what’s happening. For as much better than the rest of the league as these guys are, they’re not better enough to be favored every single day.
Pick: Milwaukee to win +102. Low confidence. (Soroka and Peralta must start.)
ALCS
The value’s still on the Blue Jays, who will be a big beneficiary of the Orioles beating the Rays as often as they can this weekend. The best thing for the Jays is closing the gap with whoever the division leader is, but if choosing one or the other, Toronto would prefer to be chasing Baltimore.
Pick: Toronto to win +950. Medium confidence.
World Series
And the value’s here as well. One thing we’re seeing: The Astros appear to be pretty overvalued by futures markets. I would imagine it’s trust in them because they’ve been so consistently great, but they’re doing a soft rebuild right now, and we haven’t seen a repeat World Series champion in a long, long time, and that’s probably for a reason. Anyway, it’s having ripple effects, and it’s opening the door the furthest right now on these guys.
Pick: Toronto to win +2000. Medium confidence.
